In terms of powerplant cost, you are absolutely right. Clean energy is the most expensive, that's not a debate. Why are states switching to it anyway? Because some people actually care about the future and there are consequences of not doing something to curb our emission. You might not believe in it, but majority of professional scientists do. Surely some of them must know something.
From a consumer perspective, most solar can pay itself off before the end of its life. It's just a matter if you are willing to take a major hit up front to pay for something that can take 5-20 years to pay off. Obviously where you live will vary your ROI, but people should be encouraged to get it if they can afford it and the ROI makes sense. You might say it doesn't help anyone but the homeowners, but they can actually lower the demand on the grid during peak hours and help soften the load during peak hours. You must know something about the spike.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty
Price per KW generated.
Nuke is at the bottom of the scale. It's the cheapest.
Hydro power. But it has it's drawn backs too. During the day, they product power. Some of the small hydro plants will pump water back up during the night to refill the lake. Bet you didn't know that. You can't count on hydro during a drought either.
Natural gas fired combine cycle power plants are next. I retired from one. A 700MW plant costs about 700 million and 2 years to build.
Coal fire next. At one time. Coal was cheaper then natural gas until Obombo declared war on coal. First Energy shut down 2 plants near me. Duke Energy sold their Ohio based plants to Dynegy. (I was in that sell) So that they didn't have to take responsible to shut down the 11 coal plants. It's in Dynegy's pocket now to retire them. A couple of them already been retired.
Renewables (solar and wind) are the most expensive to produce power. MW for MW they can't complete. Take away the tax rebates. And they would close their doors. Wind mills are labor intensive to maintain. Solar doesn't produce when it's raining, snowing and cloudy. Wind only produces power within a narrow band of wind speeds. Too little or too much, forget it. No power.
The big thing about building new power plants is the NIMBY groups. They don't want anything in their back yard. Then they bitch about the high prices that they have to pay,  |